New Member from Indiana

[DiggingDaily]

Hello Everyone!

My name is Tracy (48 male) and am very excited to be here! I’ve had this on my magical “to-do” list for several months, but finally got around to it today and I have just opened my first Mercari and working on Etsy shops yesterday and today. I am honestly running out of safe places to put some of these jars and bottles that do not include the attic (or back into the ground ).

A little background information on my property and lush dig site that extends nearly 50 feet (potentially more” and at least 4’ straight down into hard clay (also thus far).

I recently purchased approximately 18 acres of vacant land, which includes a ~4 acre pond that is adjacent and connected to my original 1.1 acres in a small rural Indiana town. On three sides, there is only open, flat and farmland that extends for many acres (not mine). Having been here since 2012, I noticed years ago that a particular area of the land always had broken glass, no matter how many times I picked up the pieces. Being next to these open fields and my house being between them and the large pond, there is a LOT of water runoff from the fields that flow through my land and into the lake (nice arrangement). One afternoon, I decided to explore the area and began to find whole liquor bottles, but also many thousands of pieces of broken glass. After figuring out my personal method of navigating the hard soil, roots, and countless shards of glass, I found my first Ball Jar that dated 1910-1923. As I dug deeper, the more I found and even better condition, especially those hung up in old tree roots (see videos). Several years have past and I now have hundreds of items, with more being discovered Daily. Many videos of the extraction process but not of every jar or bottle. From Milk Glass Decanters, rusted canned goods, fingernail polish bottles, embossed Vaseline Jars to the remnants of old leather boots, I have uncovered a muddy time capsule that never fails to produce new gems. My assumption (will soon confirm) is that an old barn or farmhouse, circa early 1900’s was either demolished or abandoned. Perhaps a few with the amount of bottles, jars and cans that I have found. See my store for a (nearly) complete listing. Cleaning 100 years of hard soil from these is not much fun. I’d rather be spending my time Digging Daily! Happy exploring and to many new discoveries!

I will be posting about a diamond point bottle that I recently extracted but have yet to find anywhere online, even after two hours of trying various methods last night.

It appears that I cannot add videos but will attach a few images of both my recent finds and couple others that will illustrate the treasure trove I am Digging in Daily. Feel free to check out my shop on Mercari (Digging Daily). Some items are priced fairly high due to still being sealed and wish some of the original contents still visible. The site has produced many items, with few being younger than 1930ish. Happy viewing and please feel free to reach out!

Very happy to be here!

Tracy

 

[CanadianBottles]

Welcome to the forum! Looks like there was a house there in the early-mid 20th century, most of what you're finding looks like it's from around the 1920s-1950s, with a few from a couple decades before and after. The best one I see there is that pottery jug, that's much older than the rest of what you're finding. Does it have any markings on it? It was likely in use for a long time before it was thrown out, there's a good chance the fruit jars were too.

 

[DiggingDaily]

Hi there and thanks for the reply and thoughts. I think you are right on the money but the fun fact that I didn’t initially include is that the ~4 acre pond, 87% of a which is within my property lines, was actually dug out and dammed sometime in the 80’s. My hypothesis is that during the spring and summer storms around here, the capillary runoff was forced/and in places, intentionally meant to change directions. My current dig site is all but ~10’ and is currently mostly ovaular in shape.

How is this a fun fact and what the heck is taking me so long? Well, funny you should ask. Throughout the current dig site, shovels cannot be used. The area is so concentrated with broken items, shards, metal object and even leather, the shovel MAY get to just a couple inches depth before hitting something. Therefore, this is a very manual job. It’s also one of the now primary feeds through my property and into the lake. The topography of this particular area is also a choke point, which explains both concentration and number of broken items.

Opinions? Was this flow change and breakage a bag thing or was it actually good in that the area just to the other side is now 60+ acre as of active farmland? Basically it was swept out of the way and buried for a century until I came around?

I’ll give the jug a look when I get back and update you. I found that nearly 4’ down and well into HARD clay.

Wow that was a lot!

Here are a few pictures of the area and the debris. Nevertheless, the deeper I go, the better the condition!

(Hope this message was not too long)

 

[Bad3555]

Welcome!

 

[lisacachecreek8!]

Hello Everyone!

My name is Tracy (48 male) and am very excited to be here! I’ve had this on my magical “to-do” list for several months, but finally got around to it today and I have just opened my first Mercari and working on Etsy shops yesterday and today. I am honestly running out of safe places to put some of these jars and bottles that do not include the attic (or back into the ground ).

A little background information on my property and lush dig site that extends nearly 50 feet (potentially more” and at least 4’ straight down into hard clay (also thus far).

I recently purchased approximately 18 acres of vacant land, which includes a ~4 acre pond that is adjacent and connected to my original 1.1 acres in a small rural Indiana town. On three sides, there is only open, flat and farmland that extends for many acres (not mine). Having been here since 2012, I noticed years ago that a particular area of the land always had broken glass, no matter how many times I picked up the pieces. Being next to these open fields and my house being between them and the large pond, there is a LOT of water runoff from the fields that flow through my land and into the lake (nice arrangement). One afternoon, I decided to explore the area and began to find whole liquor bottles, but also many thousands of pieces of broken glass. After figuring out my personal method of navigating the hard soil, roots, and countless shards of glass, I found my first Ball Jar that dated 1910-1923. As I dug deeper, the more I found and even better condition, especially those hung up in old tree roots (see videos). Several years have past and I now have hundreds of items, with more being discovered Daily. Many videos of the extraction process but not of every jar or bottle. From Milk Glass Decanters, rusted canned goods, fingernail polish bottles, embossed Vaseline Jars to the remnants of old leather boots, I have uncovered a muddy time capsule that never fails to produce new gems. My assumption (will soon confirm) is that an old barn or farmhouse, circa early 1900’s was either demolished or abandoned. Perhaps a few with the amount of bottles, jars and cans that I have found. See my store for a (nearly) complete listing. Cleaning 100 years of hard soil from these is not much fun. I’d rather be spending my time Digging Daily! Happy exploring and to many new discoveries!

I will be posting about a diamond point bottle that I recently extracted but have yet to find anywhere online, even after two hours of trying various methods last night.

It appears that I cannot add videos but will attach a few images of both my recent finds and couple others that will illustrate the treasure trove I am Digging in Daily. Feel free to check out my shop on Mercari (Digging Daily). Some items are priced fairly high due to still being sealed and wish some of the original contents still visible. The site has produced many items, with few being younger than 1930ish. Happy viewing and please feel free to reach out!

Very happy to be here!

Tracy

How fun!

 

[CanadianBottles]

The number of broken items looks pretty typical for a lot of rural household dumps. Especially if there were kids out there with slingshots smashing stuff. If the pond freezes in the winter the ice could have shattered some of the items as well though, and if the pond was excavated with heavy machinery then that would have smashed a lot of items as well. I'm not clear on whether that creek was there before the pond was excavated or not, if it was then that was likely why they dumped stuff there. Waterways were considered convenient places to get rid of trash up until the last half century or so.

 

[islamoradamark]

welcome from florida

 

[indianainsulators]

Another Hoosier here, I am a newer member as well! Some very informative stuff here.